Description:

• Aerial, hemiparasitic shrubs up to 1 m high, essentially glabrous
• Leaves alternate, opposite-subopposite, occasionally fascicled, somewhat coriaceous with age, mostly obovate to elliptic-linear to lanceolate (greatly variable in size), (15-)25-40(-80) X (4-)5-10(-18) mm, rounded at apex, cuneate at base; petioles 2-5 mm long
• Inflorescence a 3-6-flowered umbel, or occasionally racemose by the addition of several flowers lower on rachis, axillary or solitary on older branches
• Flowers 5-merous, tubular; mature buds (25-)35-40(-45) mm long, orange or red basally, yellow above, apical portion blackish, mostly cylindrical but slightly expanded basally
• Corolla gamopetalous, bilaterally symmetrical (tube bearing a short, V-shaped, unilateral split); lobes slightly longer than rest of corolla and spirally coiled following anthesis
• Filaments arising near base of lobes; anthers normally breaking from filament at anthesis (flower opens explosively)
• Style filiform, up to 80 mm long, red; stigma capitate
• Berry ellipsoid, 10-15 X 4-7 mm, reddish when mature, smooth
• x = 9

Nomenclature:

• Moquiniella Balle
  • Balle: 1628 (1954)
  • Wiens & Tölken: 25 (1979) as Moquinella
  • Germishuizen & Scott:10 (1994)
  • Polhill & Wiens: 207 (1998)
• Moquinia A.Spreng.
  • Sprengel: 9 (1828)
  • Danser: 55 (1933)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic: Moquiniella rubra (A.Spreng.) Balle, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape